Free Earthbound by Aprilynne Pike Page A

in a picture I took.”
    “Can you show me?”
    I nod and pull out my phone. When I reach the right photo, I zoom in on the white wood above the door and point. “There,” I whisper.
    Elizabeth looks, squints, looks again. She doesn’t say anything, but I can tell she doesn’t see it. My hearts slides into my stomach and I want to crumple into the couch.
    After zooming in and out a couple times, Elizabeth hands the phone back. “Why didn’t you want to tell me before?”
    “I was afraid,” I admit in a whisper.
    “Afraid of what?”
    “That you would say I was crazy. Or worse, that I needed to go back to the neurologist.” There’s a long hush, then I rush on. “After everything that’s happened, you would think that would be the least of my worries. But when it feels like nothing else in my body works, at least I’m still sane and if—if you take that away …” I can’t finish. There are no words for the darkness that losing my mind represents.
    The darkness that feels like it’s looming, waiting to devour me.
    “I don’t think you’re crazy,” Elizabeth says gently, but with a firmness that tells me she’s telling the truth. Or, at the very least, that she
thinks
she’s telling the truth. “You’ve made so much progress lately that I’ve actually been expecting you to start experiencing some … some changes.”
    “What do you mean, changes?” Like my pockets of infinite ChapStick? Should I tell her about that too?
    But even as I think it, I know I can’t. Seeing things? Well, that can be explained. Hallucinations are an ordinary side effect of traumatic brain injury. Magic pockets are not.
    “I want to continue to explore some of these things. Quinn, the triangles,” she says, not really answering my question. “And Tavia, you might have more strange things happen. Unexplainable things. And that’s okay. Just know that you can trust me and that I’ll do my best to get your life back on track. That’s what I’m here for.”
    I nod, but I don’t mean it. It’s not that I
don’t
trust her; it’s just that this is too big, too impossible. Maybe after I figure it out—when I can explain myself before she has me committed.
    Or arrested.
    What do you do with people who can magically pull lip balm from their pockets?
    “Do you think maybe you’ll draw anything else before our next appointment?” Elizabeth asks, sounding light and casual; but we both know we’re walking on thin ice with my artist’s block and if she pushes too hard, it’ll break.
I’ll
break.
    “Maybe,” I mumble, not willing to commit to more than that.
    “Well, do you mind if I keep this picture until our next session?” Elizabeth asks, pulling me out of my thoughts.
    She holds up the drawing and a zing of jealous possession rushes through me. I suppress the urge to snatch the drawing back, take a breath, and remind myself that if I managed to draw one, I can draw another. Or ten. Or a hundred.
    Besides, it’s only a couple of days.
    So then why does my heart ache like it’s gone forever? Like
he’s
gone forever?

CHAPTER TEN
    I t’s
pouring
by the time our session is done. Elizabeth offers me a ride, but I turn it down. I have a lot to mull over—a walk in the rain is just what I need. And I managed to have the foresight to wear an actual raincoat today instead of my usual hoodie; I’ll stay dry enough. Elizabeth tries to insist—says I’ll get too cold. But she finally lets me go when I tell her I’m just heading to the library.
    When I reach the curb of the parking lot, I look up and barely catch sight of a man half hidden by a bush. He’s leaning casually against one of the buildings across the street from Elizabeth’s office plaza and doesn’t seem to have seen me yet. But he looks familiar.
    It’s only when he lifts one hand to adjust his sunglasses—sunglasses in the rain?—that I realize it’s the man who was staring at me when I ran into the wall. Have I got another stalker? Or should